Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/753

Rh intellectual activity, no matter what it be, tends to create habits that may be carried into all kinds of study or business. One who has patiently, day after day and year after year, solved arithmetical or algebraic problems in the school, has by such exercise acquired habits of careful reflection and weighing of evidence that will lead him to dwell with somewhat the same care upon all matters that are brought to his attention; but unless he has sufficient data upon these new matters his reflections, of course, will come to but little. The practical conclusion is, and the one of importance in education, that study along any line limits excellence in perceiving, remembering, imagining, or reasoning to matters along this same line.

Applying this principle to the work of the schoolroom, we see that no subject should be studied merely for the discipline it may be supposed to give. The old theory that the school should cultivate the senses, the memory, and the reasoning powers of pupils, means nothing as a matter of pure discipline; in the light of modern psychology we must understand that the only way to secure this cultivation is in special directions determined by the peculiar nature of the material upon which the mind is exercised. Assuming, then (for it will not be deemed necessary to argue the matter here), that one ideal of our civilization is to have an individual understand himself in relation to his natural environment, so that he may be able to adapt himself to natural laws and turn them to the promotion of his own happiness and welfare, it follows that the study of natural law, the method of adapting one's self to it, and the industries that are based upon an adequate comprehension of it, should form an important part of school work; and it is some such argument that has introduced Nature-study into many elementary schools, giving it a prominent place there. In like manner, if it is desirable for one to be able to adjust himself in the best way possible to his social environment, he should study the organization of society, and the ethical and material conditions upon which his own and others' welfare and advancement depend. These considerations have been at the bottom of changes in the school curriculum, and are now at work in the endeavor to introduce still further improvements, as many educators think.

At all events, the old idea of formal discipline is gradually losing the breath of life, and we can think no better of it than that the sooner it releases its hold upon those who make school curricula, the sooner will the material of instruction be more nearly adapted to prepare the individual for his needs in after life. Whatever may be said in favor of the study of any branch for its disciplinary value, because of the good habits which are formed in its pursuit, may be said with equal force of those subjects which have direct worth in giving the pupil knowledge that